Monday, August 28, 2006

Turkey Bombed PKK Rebels at Iraqi Border: Sources

Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerrilla positions in the Iraqi border region this week, military sources said on Aug. 25.Several thousand Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas are based in the mountains of northern Iraq and Turkey insists it has the right to conduct cross-border operations against them if Iraq and the United States fail to crack down on the rebels.

Iraq has warned Turkey not send troops into its territory.

Military sources in southeast Turkey told Reuters two or three warplanes had bombed the Iraqi border region on the evening of Aug. 23 after PKK forces were identified in the area.

The military sources said they landed on an uncontrolled part of the border, but would not say if the bombs landed inside Iraq. The action was not significant and it was not clear what damage had been caused, the sources said.

"News that Turkish military forces’ F-16 planes bombed south Kurdistan border areas are lies and unfounded," it said.

U.S. President George W. Bush told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan last month the United States wanted to deal more aggressively with cross-border attacks by PKK rebels.

Diplomats in Ankara say the government and the armed forces are frustrated at little action on the ground despite mounting soldiers’ casualties in Turkey.

More than 30,000 have been killed, most of them Kurds, since the PKK began its campaign for a Kurdish homeland in 1984.

The United States, Turkey and the European Union, view the PKK as a terrorist organization but the U.S. military admits it is too bogged down fighting the insurgency in Iraq to launch a full-scale military crackdown on the PKK demanded by Ankara.